yes, this drives me a little bit crazy about EA. by definition “effective altruism” should include any kind of altruism that someone is trying to do effectively. But what is actually practiced by the capital letters Effective Altruism movement is actually “altruistic rationality”.
As Julia Galef mentions in this 2017 EAG panel, people have three buckets through which they spend their money: personal, personal causes (e.g. the university you went to or homelessness in the city you live), and EA causes (global make-the-world-better type things). Trying to guilt people to move money between buckets, e.g. “your $5 coffee in the morning is killing children in africa” is ineffective outreach. EA has got the third bucket covered, and I don’t see why the second bucket shouldn’t be included too. Getting people to think about philanthropy and volunteering more rationally in terms of effectiveness is generally good no matter what people’s motivations are, and increasing people’s rationality in the context of charity IMO will ultimately lead to more people naturally wanting to donate to the global EA cause bucket in the end.
yes, this drives me a little bit crazy about EA. by definition “effective altruism” should include any kind of altruism that someone is trying to do effectively. But what is actually practiced by the capital letters Effective Altruism movement is actually “altruistic rationality”.
As Julia Galef mentions in this 2017 EAG panel, people have three buckets through which they spend their money: personal, personal causes (e.g. the university you went to or homelessness in the city you live), and EA causes (global make-the-world-better type things). Trying to guilt people to move money between buckets, e.g. “your $5 coffee in the morning is killing children in africa” is ineffective outreach. EA has got the third bucket covered, and I don’t see why the second bucket shouldn’t be included too. Getting people to think about philanthropy and volunteering more rationally in terms of effectiveness is generally good no matter what people’s motivations are, and increasing people’s rationality in the context of charity IMO will ultimately lead to more people naturally wanting to donate to the global EA cause bucket in the end.